Sorry for the long ramble!
I'm currently having a miscarriage, I was around 9 weeks and finding this all so very painful as should have been our rainbow baby after a very traumatic loss at 20 weeks in August last year. There was no heartbeat at a scan earlier this week and I'm now just starting to experience the bleeding and cramps and physical side.
I've had a really shirty email from my boss this morning, after explaining I'll need a little time off. (For context, I have already had 2 weeks off for anxiety and was due to go back this week, however my GP called today and is extending due to the current situation)
It is a very small and toxic workplace, I've only been there just over a year. There is no HR and now my boss is demanding I give him various times I will make myself available to discuss on Monday, when he can fit me in to discuss the next steps.
I'm so tired and worn out and emotionally drained. Not to mention preparing myself for a miscarriage now. 😢
I was already feeling burnt out. It's a start up around 4 years old and I work from home. I joined after leaving a job I loved of 8 years, in a senior position managing 4 small teams in 2 different locations. The company had been acquired and I felt like a change.
On paper my current role looked amazing, but in reality there was no training or onboarding, no processes, very unhappy clientele thrown at me. I've just been juggling hot potatoes while the company consistently fails to deliver many things they've promised (to clients or staff).
I'm classed as leadership, but what that means is being a scapegoat for the Directors broken promises and no scope to actually do my job and create and develop teams (what I was employed to do!) We all get barked at, shouted at, made to feel inadequate and several people end up in tears. There's even a really crass running joke with some people that when a certain person is stressed you can tell by their physical appearance!!!!
I work remotely, on my own in silo, with ever increasing demands and no support to ever be able to complete anything. But increasing threat of even more prestigious clients and a very unrealistic time frame of several large tasks I need to complete and deliver.
The MD flip flops and changes priorities left right and center, usually in an email or a team meeting where they just lose their shit and undermines everyone on the leadership team. A colleague recently sent an email out dropping many of their responsibilities to maintain some balance and apologising that their stress had been pointed out to them by the MD as causing other people to feel unstable. Said colleague has told me they are hanging in until Christmas and will be looking to leave!
I've lost all my confidence and don't know who I am anymore. I'm lost at even beginning to put together a CV or cover letter. I usually interview and set up new teams, what the hell is wrong with me?!!
And really the most important thing should be my health and well being right now, but it's not!
I really, absolutely cannot afford the time off, I'm not shirking off work. I mentally and now physically am going through something so emotional and painfully draining, my priority isn't working my arse into the ground to deliver something on my own that he should have ensured I had a team to help deliver.
This particular prestige client has been in the cards for over a year, so why am I being made to feel like this is all on my shoulders and I'm such a failure. I work so bloody hard!
I just want to be happy again, with a lovely thriving team that are valued and know when you face something so terrible and out of your control , it's ok to not be ok!
Is it really too much to ask?
Sorry for the really crappy ramble.
I'm feeling so broken!!
I feel so sad for my partner too, as he's clearly going through the emotional side of our losses and pain. He doesn't have any of his own children and I need to support him as much as he supports me.
Life feels so cruel at times! Should your job really make you feel like this?